I recently attended a wonderful event sponsored by the Blue Ridge Broadband Alliance. The Alliance is headquartered in Asheville and is focused on improving broadband in the many rural counties in Western North Carolina. The Alliance is being led by Sara Nichols with help from two great sponsors – The Benton Institute and the Dogwood Health Trust’s Digital Opportunity Initiative.
The event I attended was a Digital Opportunity Pitch Party where four local groups made a pitch to the crowd and to a great panel of judges to vie for funding to support their digital opportunity efforts. The four organization that made pitches were AB Tech, OurJourney, Swift App School, and Through the Trees in 828. All four pitches highlighted great local efforts to assist people in the region with digital assistance. All four groups won an award that ranged from $1,000 to $4,000.
The overall winner was OurJourney. This is a non-profit organization whose founders were originally incarcerated in North Carolina, who now have a mission to support those who are returning from incarceration with their reentry journey.
OurJourney has created a reentry kit. The kit includes a booklet called What to Expect: Your First Days Free along with a package of information tailored for each County in North Carolina. The package advises those in reentry on a wide range of issues like finding a job and transitional housing. The package includes contact information for agencies, organizations, faith- based ministries, and businesses that provide services for those who are returning from prison. Also included is a handbook from the DMV on how to renew a driver’s license, a t-shirt, and a gift-card for two meals.
You might wonder what this has to do with digital equity. Each reentry kit includes a Samsung smartphone and three months of pre-paid service. OurJourney has also created a phone app that provides a wide range of assistance.
One important service from OurJourney is a tutorial on to use a cellphone, something that is going to be unfamiliar for anybody who has been incarcerated for a number of years. It’s easy for the average person to think that using a cellphone is natural and intuitive, but it involves a number of digital skill that we all learned over many years. For somebody who has never used the Internet or a smartphone, simple tasks like web searching, banking, or shopping can be overwhelming. OurJourney also has a help desk that offers one-on-one training and is available to answer questions.
What’s most impressive about OurJourney is that they know, after a few years of doing this, that what they are doing works. They are already seeing that people who get their assistance have a far lower recidivism rate than for others coming out of incarceration Prison officials and County officials strongly support and recommend the program to those coming out of incarceration.
The specific pitch that OurJourney made to the Blue Ridge Broadband Alliance was help to fund the creation of a program for women since they previously have only supported men. Women reentering society have different needs and concerns than men.
People often tell me that they don’t fully understand what digital opportunity training really does. OurJourney is one of many examples from around the country of local organizations and programs that are helping those who most need the help to navigate the digital world. They are doing it in the only way that really works by helping people one-on-one.